I wake to a ringing sound.
It’s not my alarm. It’s the morning school bell.
I’m on the catwalk in the dark theater.
I check my phone, see the texts between me and Mom. Then I remember. I fell asleep in the theater and woke up after an hour. I sent Mom a text saying I was staying at Reach’s house and went back to sleep.
I hear students moving through the school, laughing and messing around in the hall. It’s like a party through a wall, far away and muted.
I look at the date. May 20. Opening night.
I should go to my first class, but I don’t move.
It’s daytime, but no real light makes it into the theater. There is only the ghost light standing guard against the gloom.
I look down at the stage.
A light goes on in my head. Not one of Derek’s lights.
A different light.
I imagine it glowing in a corner, a pale amber that streams across the back of the stage, spreading up the wide arc of the cyclorama.
It is a beginning.
In my head I paint the stage with other lights, dabbing in orange muted with brown.
I pick a focal point and lay in a soft golden light with a hot center, diffuse around the edges. I let red seep in from the top.
I look at the palette I’ve created in my head.
Sunrise.
I recognize the colors and the way they’re mixed.
My father’s style, mixed in light rather than paint.
I lay back on the catwalk and let the light wash over me. I cover myself with a jacket, and I close my eyes. I know it’s dark, but the light in my imagination is warm and familiar.
I spend the entire day up on the catwalk. I don’t eat or drink anything so I don’t have to go to the bathroom. I just lie on the catwalk all day thinking about my life. I think about Dad, how everything would be okay if he were still here. I know it’s a lie. Everything wasn’t perfect when Dad was alive. But it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t be perfect now if he were here.
My phone buzzes every hour or so. I glance at it time and again, hoping it might be Summer calling, or Reach, or even Josh calling me back. But it never is.
It’s Mom. Nervous texting. Her specialty.
I respond to her: sho-day. bzy. c u 2nite.
Okay, sweetie pie. I will see you at the show, she texts.
The messages stop.
And I start thinking again.
For the next couple hours, people wander in and out of the theater. There are final set and light checks. Props and wardrobe people come and go.
Bells chime at the end of each period, but I don’t pay attention. I’m waiting for the day to end, even though I have no idea what I’ll do then.
“Knock, knock,” Grace says.
I turn to find Grace’s head peeking over the edge of the catwalk. “I didn’t hear you climbing.”
“I’m sneaky like that,” she says. “Can I come up?”
“I guess.”
She climbs onto the catwalk. She’s a natural in the air, not like Reach, who hates it up here.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she says. “I kept thinking about what happened, and then I got cramps and had to use the toilet, like, fourteen times.”
“Spare me the details.”
“I’m just saying I was upset. I hate that I turned my back on you.”
“Reach can be very persuasive.”
“It’s got nothing to do with Reach. It’s about you. I was angry at you.”
“Because I blew everyone off?”
“Because you blew me off.”
I look at her, confused.
“What am I missing?” I say.
“You blew me off for that stupid actress.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“You’re crazy about her!” Grace says, and she grunts and buries her face in her hands.
“Grace?”
“I’m so stupid,” she says.
“You’re in love with Derek, aren’t you?” I say.
“I thought I was. But I started having different thoughts.”
“What kinds of thoughts?”
“Like maybe Derek is an old story.”
“What’s the new story?”
“You and me,” she says.
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s just that you were so nice to me, and then we were in the beamer, and we had so much fun—”
“It was fun for me, too,” I say.
“And I thought, if it was fun once, maybe it would be fun again. Or fun for a long time.”
I think about Grace grinding through the gears in the beamer. The super serious look on her face. It makes me smile to think of it.
Grace says, “It’s not like I’m in love with you or anything. I just thought maybe … maybe we had a chance of becoming something.”
“You were so preoccupied with Derek. I never thought about us that way.”
“I was preoccupied,” she says. “But things change. You have to move on.”
“I know,” I say. But how do you do that?
Grace sits cross-legged on the catwalk across from me.
“What about you and me?” she says.
“Bad timing,” I say.
“Bummer,” she says.
We watch the people come and go down below us.
“You know that actress—she gave me the just friends speech.”
“I hate that speech,” Grace says.
“No kidding.”
“How do you feel?”
“How did it feel with Derek?”
“Like liquid hell.”
“It’s like that. Only the liquid is boiling.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace says.
“How long does it last?”
“No way to know. You just have to ride it out. Try not to go crazy.”
“I already went crazy.”
“How crazy?”
“I almost cried in front of Mr. Apple.”
“That’s not so crazy.”
“I slept in the theater last night.”
“Did you wear a mask and play the organ?”
“Not yet.”
“Resist the impulse. That would be crazy.”
The school bell rings, and the hall fills with voices.
“Why are you here in the middle of the day?” I say.
“They let us out of class a little early so we could get ready for the show.”
A bunch of cast members gather in the front of the theater.
“I should get my act together,” Grace says.
“I’m going to stay up here.”
“If you need anything—” I hold up my phone. “I’m adding you to my favorites list,” I say.
“You’re already on mine,” she says.
She winks and heads down the ladder, joining the cast and crew assembling onstage.
The theater doors burst open. Derek enters with a flourish.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “It’s showtime!”